So today I am writing this entry from the Amsterdam. I am getting ready to board my plane back to Boston. All I can say is the entire country of Holland is probably the best place you could ever ride a bike. There a no hills and the cars and traffic yield to bikes. It was amazing to come to an intersection and have the cars let you go even if they had the traffic light. It was truly a unique biking experience.
So the L2A ride was to support the charity Hope and Play.
Waiting for the games to begin
This charity helps to build playgrounds,schools and provides educational material for kids in areas where there is a desperate need for help. Truly a great cause.
So I got talked into this ride by a couple of friends who were supposed to ride with me but they ended up having to back out at the last minute. I have already given them a hard time about that. I decided to go anyway. I figured when will be the next time you can get to ride from London to Amsterdam. I was the only American riding in the event but everyone made me feel very welcome. So it was three days of fun and riding through England and Holland. Oh, and yes a ferry ride from Harwich to the Hook of Holland in case you were wondering how we got to Holland.
Day 1- Started just outside of London and headed East to the Coast. We set off early and had great
Just off the ferry in Holland
weather all the way. One of the more interesting parts of the day was out of the group of 52 riders natural groups started to form based on speed. I ended up in the lead group with 7 other riders and we stayed together for all three days. But there is more, almost all of the riders in this groups had Garmin GPS devices with the course mapped. Despite that we still got lost. At one point we all stopped to talk about which way to go and all five of these devices were telling us different directions. So even with the latest technology we still had to ask for directions. Which as a man is not something we are able to do. Needless to say I think I am going to send a note to Garmin to see if they have an explanation for that. Anyway sometimes getting lost and finding new roads is part of the fun of riding. We got to Harwich early, had dinner and boarded the ferry.
Day 2 and 3 – We slept on the ferry and rode off into Holland.
I had been using my helmet camera for the ride and as I rode up to the security checkpoint. The Dutch police promptly told me that the camera better not be on. Which of course it was so I quickly shut it off. Then a short time after that the batteries died anyway. You have to love technology. All this cutting edge gear and the batteries die. We rode up the coast of Holland and the great part was it was flat. Everything is either at or below sea level so great for picking up the pace an riding fast. That was until we got lost again. Thank you Garmin. We evetually got back on track and made our stop for the night.
The worse thing you can do after two days of biking is to drink alcohol. But that didn’t seem to stop anyone when we stopped overnight. Good thing the last day was the shortest distance.
Ariving in Amsterdam
We all woke up early with our heads hurting but had a large breakfast with lots of water and headed for Amsterdam. We started of great with some of is deciding we should sprint against each other as we rode on the bike lanes. Even though we thought we were doing pretty well I am pretty sure we got passed by a Dutch woman on a bike with a big basket on the front. All of us with our super light bikes got passed by a woman going for groceries. I guess we will just have to blame the drinks. As we headed to Amsterdam, guess what we got lost again by following the Garmin or Garmin’s. We eventually found our way to the park and had great lunch before everyone had to head home.
Last day in the Park
I have to say this was an incredible experience. I met some great people along the ride and that is what I will remeber the most. I also loved the fact that Holland culture is based around bikes. Everyone rides not just the guys in spandex. They are planning on doing the ride again next year and I have to say I would love to do it again only this time I want to see if we can bring a team from the US. To support the charity and have great ride at the same time.
Let’s see what we can do for next year.
